The Children's Silence
by supersnuffy
Summary: The Doctor never knew that he'd be meeting Rose again, especially not under circumstances surrounding the Pandorica. The problem is, something is wrong, very wrong, and the Doctor and his TARDIS crew are the only ones who can fix it. 11/Rose, Rory/Amy.
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING. POTENTIAL SPOILERS.**

**AN: I found a picture of the concept of the Pandorical. I'll send it to anybody who wishes to see it. Sorry this first chapter is really short, it's just to see if anybody...cares? xD  
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I'm basing my fanfiction on this picture so it'd be a bad idea to read it if you wanted to save everything till the last ep D:

Weeks upon weeks, Rose's life had been a melancholy scheduled event, following a strict pattern of cause to effect rather than the wibbly wobbly, timey wimey…stuff that she was used to.

It was the 3rd year that John Smith had been dead. He'd killed himself. She saw it coming, gradually but slowly – his human mind was in pain from the overload of information, the lives of a man who'd lived for nearly 1000 years all put into one little, insignificant and extremely human brain.

When the end came, she had been ready for it. It only tore the gaping hole in her body a tiny bit wider, the hole that would never truly be filled while in this universe. She could feel something not quite right in the universe and everybody else was feeling it too. They just ran and hid from the pain, the inevitable truth that something, somewhere, somewhen just wasn't quite right.

Cracks had started appearing. They seemed to watch them, they smiled…they grinned as they steadily opened wider to unleash whatever was inside. Children dreamt horrible dreams about the severs in the universe's body and became disturbed in the head, unable to recall good memories until they were erased forever, leaving them in a permanent state of frightened silence. A silence that now rang over the children's playground at school. The silence of the children was a silence that plagued them all.

It was just another day to Rose. She pulled her shirt over her head, barely noticing how it seemed to hang off of her frame rather than hug her body. She'd not paid much attention to her own health lately. It wasn't that she didn't want to eat, she just…forgot. She forgot how to care about herself and instead focused all of her attention on fixing the world, wrapping the wounded in bandages and healing the universe.

They couldn't heal the cracks though, the smiles. That was their official name due to the fact that a certain special ops officer laughed whenever the word 'crack' surfaced in a conversation. It made them seem less sinister yet more sinister at the same time…was the universe smiling with them or laughing at them and their silence?

Something was extremely wrong today, though. It was if the streets were lined with blood, people stepped carefully and cautiously without realising it. They spoke in hushed tones and they stopped whenever anybody walked near. It was as if the whole world knew a secret that Rose didn't and she didn't like it.

She heard a loud, pained shrieking as she suddenly dropped to her knees, clutching her head. She could see gold, stars, swirls, strands of gold winding themselves through her eyesight, spilling out of her ears, eyes, mouth in a silent scream. It linked her to one of the cracks and she instantly knew what was coming. She hurtled into the darkness.


	2. Doors

**AN: Sorry it's a bit short again! I promise I'll beef it up more once it gets going 3 Thanks for the lovely reviews, too! I hope I did the Doctor and Amy justice here, this is my first time ever writing for the Doctor and second time for Amy, haha.**

The Doctor seemed…restless. Amy watched him with raised eyebrows as he ran around the TARDIS console wildly, fixing things that didn't need to be fixed and sticking his nose in where, quite frankly, the giant ship really didn't want it. She told him this by electrocuting and the Time Lord had accumulated many bandages and plasters all over his fingers from the burns but he still prodded around with the sonic screwdriver, ignoring Amy's watchful eyes until she finally spoke up.

"Doctor, what's up with you? You're acting like somebody's stuck a rocket up your bum." She folded her arms and leant against the railing, watching as his head popped up from under the console.

"What? Me? Nothing's wrong. Nothing. She just needs a bit of tweaking, that's all. I was thinking about fixing the chameleon circuit but I decided against it so I just decided to fix the…" he frowned slightly. "The time…thing…that gets us to places on time. Timeatinator." He dragged the last word on to make it as sciency as possible.

"…You didn't think to fix that _before_ you left me for 14 years?"

Ooh dear. The Doctor took one look at her stormy face and dove back under the console. "I was…busy…" Amy hadn't experienced one of his regenerations before, especially one as strong as the last he'd had where he'd been so desperate to not leave. He didn't want his feelings, thoughts and memories to change and thankfully this new incarnation was quite similar. He could remember everybody in the same light as before, Donna, Martha, Jack and sweet Lynda with a Y…all of the people that had been travelling with him and those that put his lives on the line for him. He stopped abruptly in the middle of what he was doing, sonic screwdriver poised in the air and his mouth open slightly. It would have been funny to Amy, who had walked down to demand an answer…except for the fact that his eyes were shimmering with tears.

"Rose." He whispered and ran past Amy up to the console, pulling the screen around to view the numbers and strange Gallifreyan letters on it, things that Amy never understood.

"…Doctor, are you okay?" she asked quietly, following up to the console with a confused look on her face.

He shook his head and turned to give her one of his big smiles, similar to when she'd said that saving the earth wasn't too shabby.

"I'm fine, Amy. Dya wanna give the whole adventuring a miss today? I haven't given you the full tour of the TARDIS yet. Well, I could never give you the full tour, she's way too big for that, so many rooms I haven't even seen…let's try and find some of them!" he clapped his hands together, put the sonic in his jacket pocket and grabbed her hand, dragging her down a corridor. Amy shook her head but followed obediently, knowing better than to interrogate him when it was clear he didn't want to tell her what was upsetting him.

"So…did you find where the pool ended up?" Amy smiled and caught up to him.

He stopped, frowning. "Yeah…I found it in the middle of another pool. Quite awkward, really. Maybe one day the old girl will get it right…maybe one day I'll also be ginger." He grinned at her and she raised her eyebrows yet again. She seemed to be doing a lot of that today.

"You want to be ginger?"

"Of course I do! Ginger is wonderful, is it not? Ginger stops nausea, it tastes great, smells great, it looks like a weird windy route thing and.." he picked up a strand of her hair. "It's a great hair colour. What is there not to love about ginger? Some of the best people ever were ginger, Vincent Van Gogh as you well know, Elizabeth the Fourth, the good queen of the second British Empire was Ginger until she decided to dye her hair.." Amy let him ramble on at his usual pace of 90 miles an hour, taking in the strange corridors with twisted, coral like roots winding up the walls to form an arch which was all lit by a soft blue glow from the floor below them. She watched door after door go by but a peculiar one caught her eye. She let the Doctor wander off, rambling to himself about how brilliant Gingers are and she turned to face the door properly. It seemed to be radiating an air of…sadness. It was almost as if the TARDIS was sad about the door but she didn't want to remove whatever was in it…it was the biggest door of them all and looked just like a normal door in a normal house, as apposed to all of the crazy, organic doors she'd seen before.

It was painted a faded pink colour and it had a painted R on the door. She tried it and it was open, to her surprise, so she walked into the room and looked around – just moving brought up dust and it caused her to cough.

"Amyyy?" the Doctor's enquiring voice rang through the corridors and he stopped when he saw which door was open. He grabbed Amy and pulled her out, making her jump about a foot in the air and consequently dropped the picture frame she was holding. It smashed and the Doctor seemed to forget her anger as he dropped to the floor to pick up the glass pieces, not caring if they cut him. He took the picture out and looked at it, his face falling.

"…Who is she?" Amy asked in a soft voice.

"Rose." He whispered, not offering any explanation to the name. He shook his head, tucking the picture away in his pocket as he closed the door. "Never under any circumstances go in that room again, okay? It's not your business."

Amy shook her head in shock, unsure how to respond to the suddenly angry man. "I didn't mean to. You said that I could look in any room I wanted when I first came here!"

"Yeah, well, I lied. Any room except mine, this one and the one with the black door." He pointed to it. It was next to the pink door and had a similar air of sadness around it.

"…Who was she?" she asked, following him as he practically jogged down the corridor to the next lot of doors.

"She was…a friend. A very good friend that I lost."

"Sounds like more than a friend, the fuss you're making of her." Amy raised one eyebrow.

The Doctor turned to her, sucking in a breath through his teeth. "Just leave it Amy. Just this once, THIS ONCE, leave it alone, alright?" he stormed off, his teeth gritted together.

Amy stood there in apparent shock, watching as he walked away. Now she /wanted/ to look in the rooms. She looked around at the black door and pressed her hands against it and it opened of its own accord – as if the TARDIS wanted her to know about the Doctor's past. She checked that he was well and truly gone and she walked in, the must and dust hitting her nose again but she just pinched it to stop herself from sneezing and giving herself away.

The room was a lot different and more sophisticated to the other one, simple yet effective. It was modern styled, white walls, white furniture and deep blue silk sheets. There were random piles of pictures around and she picked up one of them, frowning. It was of a young blonde girl, an older man with short hair and big ears and a handsome younger man all looking at the camera and pulling faces.

The next one was of them both kissing the young girl on the cheek who had turned red at this. She smiled softly at the pictures and put that stack down.

The next stack wasn't as happy as the last. It was full of pictures, just random ones, of the blonde girl and the man. The next stack had a note.

'This is Rose. If you ever come back here, Jack, I carried on taking pics for you so you can see what the Doctor and I got up to while you were gone. Miss you, love you loads my little womanizer, Rose '

She assumed the young girl in the pictures must be Rose. The next stacks of pictures, much more organized, were just of the same young girl with a different man. More handsome this time with brown hair and a cheeky grin, always doing something stupid in front of the camera or staring at the blonde girl with a much softer smile.

Oh. That's who Rose was.

She couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy – how come the Doctor seemed so besotted with Rose in these pictures? Then again, it was the Doctor. He'd never admit it or say otherwise. There was a sudden shaking as the TARDIS landed and she set the stack down and ran out quickly, shutting the door behind her. She made her way back to the console room, frowning as she noticed something strange. Nobody was flying the TARDIS.

"…Doctor?" she called. The man in question ran in, throwing something over his shoulder as he did so.

"What did you touch?" he accused and she folded her arms.

"Nothing! I just ran in here because I thought you were gonna chuck me off!"

"Nah. Wouldn't chuck anybody for being curious…now, what do we have here? This is interesting, Stonehenge?" he frowned, pushing the doors open. The morning air was chilly and Amy certainly wasn't dressed for it but she also knew that she definitely wouldn't get time to change.

"Come on, this could be interesting!" he ran into the center, spinning around with the sonic. "Interesting readings coming from below….like there's something buried there, watching, waiting…" he walked over to a large slab of rock.

"…Ah. This could be a problem."

"What, why? What are you on about, Doctor?" Amy hadn't quite caught up yet.

"It's under here…which means somehow moving this big slab of rock here." He put his hand on his chin, adapting his usual 'thinking' pose.

"Maybe I could be of assistance, Doctor?" the familiar American syllables rang through the air.


	3. Paper Cranes

**AN: Glad to hear you enjoyed the last chapter :D Your reviews are really what keeps me going so if you enjoyed it or you have anything you want to see, any advice, please don't hesitate to press that button at the bottom! Thanks~ Hope you enjoy this one, too :D I might be adding in some nods to my favourite TV shows. There was one in the last one but it was very small and subtle, just something the character would say. Points and a gold star for whoever finds them :'D**

"Yes, you could, Jack. It'd help if you got this big…rock…thing off of the entrance." He suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to face the young man, eyes wide. Amy had a similar expression as she eyed up the handsome man in front of her.

"….Jack?" his shocked face turned into a grin.

"Wow, Doctor. What happened to the suit? And the…well, what happened?"

"…The Master. Again. Complicated, really, a lot of people helped me and I think I absorbed a load of radiation. I don't really remember…" he looked back at him with a sad smile and Jack lifted his chin.

"…What about Rose? She was with you when you kicked us off, wasn't she?"

"I…left her again. With my clone, she's pretty much sorted with him." He swallowed, his hands finding his pockets. "She deserves better than being stuck with me, Jack. If anything happened to her and I lost her for good, what would I do then?"

"I know what you mean, Doctor. She's safe. That's all that matters, isn't it?" Jack decided to drop the subject and he turned to the red head, grinning at her. "Captain Jack Harkness at your service." He offered her his hand and the Doctor slapped it away.

"Stop flirting with my companions, Harkness," he scolded, turning to the slab of rock. He gestured towards it and looked at Jack with raised eyebrows.

Amy grinned. "I'm not complaining." She grabbed Jack's hand anyway and he grinned back at her.

"I like her already."

"Doctor, I just want to ask one favour." Jack's voice was totally serious again, so serious that it caused the Doctor to look at him properly.

"Depends what it is, Jack. No, I will _not_ do what you asked me to when we first met. From your stories, you do perfectly fine with 10 inc-"

"No, it's not that, Doctor." He almost cracked a smile. Almost. "Not everything is written in stone, right…? Can you…" he hesitated, not really wanting the man to reject him.

"Can I what? Make you a bacon sandwich? Amy can do that. She's Scottish, she can fry things." This earned him a sharp elbow to the side from Amy.

"Yeah, then have it spat out by a stupid ass alien who doesn't know what he wants…" she grumbled.

"Can you bring somebody back for me?" Jack asked quietly. "Can you save somebody?"

"…Save who?" the Doctor sounded suspicious. Jack's eyes fell to the floor and just for a moment, he looked like a little boy. A lost little kid, too shy to ask for directions back to his parents.

"His name was Ianto Jones. He was 28. Twenty Eight, Doctor. He was killed by…by a virus in the air…they killed him." Jack's voice cracked slightly as he spoke. "Just him. Just that one, amazing Welshman." He looked at the Doctor, his icy blue eyes full of hope.

The Doctor winced slightly and he put his hand on Jack's shoulder, pulling him in for a hug. "Jack, I…I can't, you know I can't. It'd change all of time, just one man could somehow change events so that the world gets brought to its knees. You know I want to, Jack, and I really wish I could. You don't know how much willpower it takes just to not break through the barriers between universes to grab Rose back but I can't. I can't promise it'll feel better, either. You've lived through so much and you have to keep living," he pulled away from the hug to see that Jack was actually crying. "but Jack, just…don't forget him." He glanced slightly at Amy this time, guilty over Rory still. "Please don't ever forget him."

"I couldn't." his voice was now just a hoarse whisper.

"…I want to show you something." The Doctor muttered and he looked around. "Amy, could you…stay outside?"

"What, on my own? No chance, it's freezing out here and it's also kind of spooky." Amy pulled a face at him, trying to be light hearted.

"I can leave you in the hands of one of my team, if you like? His name is Rory, he appeared in the Hub one day when I went back, half dead and rambling on about some girl with red hair, that he'd forgot her name and he shouldn't forget it…He's asleep in the SUV right now." Jack threw her the keys and her eyebrows raised.

"…Fine, you two go do your spacey stuff but make sure you come back and you," she prodded the Doctor's chest. "Don't leave." she muttered through gritted teeth before walking to the SUV.

The Doctor waved her off, deciding to say nothing about the man that Jack had explained.

Wordlessly, he led him through a series of corridors before he stopped at a room. It was just a normal door, nothing special until it was opened.

Hundreds and hundreds of paper cranes dangled from the ceiling, each one perfectly crafted from a piece of colourful origami paper, uniform yet each one different in a certain way. They twirled in the gentle breeze that was blown through when the door opened and Jack looked up in amazement at the paper birds that were dangling at all heights from a very high ceiling.

He looked at the Doctor. "How many?" he muttered, and the Doctor stared ahead.

"Nine hundred and ninety nine paper cranes. I don't believe in anything but h-…" he shook his head and carried on. "There's a Japanese story out there that if you make a thousand origami cranes you please the gods and they'll grant you one wish…" he looked up and he picked up a piece of square paper, wrote something down in his neat, slanted writing and skilfully folded the piece of paper into a crane. "And now…a thousand. I wrote my wish on the inside."

Jack watched as he tied the crane to the ceiling and he stood back, sighing. "I doubt it works but it kept me busy for a while at least…" he flicked one of the cranes fondly and watched it swing back and forth, sending a few more going as it bumped into them.

"Come on then, let's go see what's under Stonehenge, shall we?" he grin was back on and Jack just followed, slightly perplexed as the Doctor ran outside, full of energy.


	4. Pandora's Box

**AN: Oh my gosh guys, I am so sorry for the wait. I got pretty sick and then I just ended up getting sidetracked by everything Dx This chapter is probably pretty boring but I promise the story will get going soon. I'll get another one uploaded ASAP to make up for the horror of this one.**

"Doctor, you don't even know what's down there, let alone whether it'll come out and shoot you or not." Jack was currently wrapping rope around the stone so they could pull it aside using the SUV. "At least let me go down first. I don't die."

The Doctor considered this for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I wouldn't like to leave you all stranded on Earth of all places for the rest of your life." He grinned at Jack and then looked at the man who had just walked out of the car.

"Sir, Tosh said she got a scan of Stonehenge and there's apparently nothing sentient under there, just a giant metal box that she can't get any readings on. She said it had to have a mass but it was totally protected, like it had some kind of blackout curtain around it or something. She's trying to get through it now. He also said that he found your red braces, they were at his house." Rory had to suppress a shudder. He just found it creepy that his boss and his colleague were having sex almost every night and they – or at least Jack – liked to talk about it openly, even brag about it.

"Giant box…?" the Doctor questioned, deciding to leave the Rory conundrum until later. "Well, that's very weird isn't it?" he asked, watching as Amy managed to operate the SUV to pull the big rock off of the entrance.

"Come on Amy, put your foot down!" he yelled to the car and she stuck her head out of the window.

"I am TRYING!" she yelled back, putting her foot down. There was a loud crunching and grinding noise as the stone slowly moved back, revealing a stone staircase that looked like it just led to an inky black pit of nothingness.

"Well…let's go and explore, then!" The Doctor pulled his sonic out of his pocket and waited for Jack to lead the way down the stairs, holding the buzzing instrument out like a torch. It didn't do much in the way of lighting the large cavern but it did help them to find three large torches.

"Okay, me and the Doctor will take a torch, Rory and Amy can share one because you'll be staying at the back and we need two sets of eyes to watch the back." Jack grabbed the first lit torch and handed it to the Doctor, the second one to Rory and took the last for himself.

Rory grinned at Amy, who grinned back. "Fine with us. It's weird, Amy, where did you come from? It's like I've known you my whole life."

Amy frowned and nodded in agreement, snatching the torch from him. "I know what you mean. I feel like I should know you." She didn't notice the tear on her cheek until Rory pointed it out. "Why are you crying?" he asked, using his slightly muddy sleeve to wipe it off.

"…I was crying?" Amy looked at the Doctor for an explanation but he was too engrossed in helping Jack to get the large wooden plank off of the door. It clattered to the ground and the doors swung open with the help of a large breeze from above, sending the dust and cobwebs flying in the air which caused Amy to sneeze violently for a minute. "Could have warned me, I have hayfever…" she sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

"That's odd. I had a friend who used to have hayfever and red hair…or was she a girlfriend?" Rory frowned slightly. "Jack, when will those memory pills start to work?" he asked in despair, looking at the American who looked sheepish under the Doctor's gaze.

"I'm not sure, Rory, they're different for everybody." He managed to blurt out before the Doctor pulled him aside.

"Memory pills?" he hissed. Jack shrugged.

"No, tic tacs. Trying to see if the placebo effect would work on getting his memories back because he doesn't respond well in training, he gets frustrated and gives up after about 5 minutes."

The Doctor seemed surprised. "Oh. Erm, Okay…" he had been fuelled up to lecture Jack on using memory pills as well. Darn. Oh well, surely Jack would do something lecture-worthy sooner or later. He glanced at the American who was gradually edging in front of them all protectively, holding his torch out as he moved to explore the room. He put one hand to his ear. "Gwen, bring the rest of the team up, would you? I think it'd be safer to have proper backup on this."

"Do we really have to bring Gwen and Rhys over?" Rory groaned in annoyance. "All Gwen does is flirt with you and all Rhys does is get jealous of Gwen flirting with you. It gets old faster than a…" he tried to think of a simile. "I don't know. It just gets old fast." He shuffled awkwardly and Amy smiled reassuringly at him.

"…Er, Doctor, what was that noise?" Amy frowned at the strange, metallic grinding noise coming, quite oddly, from the huge and very much stationary box in the middle of the room.

The Doctor ran up to it curiously and buzzed it with the screwdriver. "Hm. It's some sort of…prison…" he frowned. Jack butted in.

"That's the Pandorica. There's stories about it, legends…apparently it contains something bathed in the blood of galaxies, something so powerful and strong that it had to be contained in a box that had hundreds of layers of complicated puzzles…" he looked at the Doctor, but Amy made the connection.

"Like Pandora's Box…?" she whispered.


	5. Valiant Child

**AN: Sorry this one is super short, I'm hoping the effect I was going for worked ;)**

Gold, white, grey, pink, purple. The colours swirled around her, they rushed before her eyes and pushed themselves into her head, forcing her to see what they could see, the body of a broken, blonde girl, worn from the troubles and trials of the world. Her travels hadn't done her well – her arms and legs stuck out at strange angles and she could feel the pain radiating from her. The girl made no move, she just looked up with dilated pupils, hardly seeing what was in front of her through the red in her eyes.

It was painful to watch, but there wasn't much to help the poor member of the human race, she could just watch as the tears slid down her cheek and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish as she tried to find the syllables to form whatever was on her tongue at that particular moment.

Her pain and her memories flooded into her with the colours, black representing despair...the most prominent colour. Every day of her life had been spent hoping, watching, waiting for him to return, yet she knew it couldn't be. The despair filled her every night and haunted her in her dreams, bringing up pictures of her dearest friends. She had watched them all suffer, she'd watched them all wither away and die before her very eyes and what could she do? She just carried on the family business in silence, adopting a willy wonka esque persona where nobody knew anything about her.

She was so brave, such a brave girl. Such a valiant child who had to die in battle and break her Doctor's hearts. She knew he would have found somebody else, possibly somebody better than her. A large chunk of the colour was also yellow for confusion, confusion about her Doctor. Did she want him to move on? Or, more importantly, did she want him to be happy? It had taken a long time to come to the conclusion that yes, she wanted him to be happy. It stabbed her with jealousy to think of him with another woman but it wouldn't be his fault, nor would it be the woman's fault. After all, Rose chose the meta-crisis Doctor over him. She would never recover from the guilt of that, then the guilt of his untimely death as he tried to save Jackie.

Yes, Rose was a very brave child. It was a shame...what had to be done to her.

* * *

She could hear singing, melodies that danced and turned in the moonlit night, melodies that filled her to the brim with joy, pain, regret, sadness…She didn't know where she was and all she could hear were the melodies and all she could feel was her own pain coursing through her body, through her mind.

Strong arms lifted her up and set her gently into some sort of armchair. Hospital? She felt something fit restraints around her arms and a soft, melodic voice. "I'm so sorry, Rose." She whispered.

The darkness slowly shrouded her as she managed to croak two syllables. "Doc…tor?"


	6. Oh, dear

"Pandora's Box? What, like…all of the bad stuff in one box?" Jack looked at it, frowning. "But…we have plenty of bad shit in this world. I don't see what could be in that box that is worse than all of the bad stuff that's in the universe already." Jack turned his eyes to Amy, who just shrugged.

"I don't know, do I? Maybe it's something that would make the universe better…then again, bathed in the blood of galaxies…" she shuddered. "Yeah, I get your point. What could possibly be that bad?"

The Doctor looked over at them. "I think I know." He muttered, looking slightly distressed by something as he scanned the box.

"Me."

The group instantly turned their eyes to him, with mixed expressions of confusion.

"But…you're the good guy, you save everything." Amy shook her head.

"You don't know what destruction I've caused…" the Doctor put his sonic screwdriver away, his voice full of anguish. "You don't know the horrors I've seen, just….let them pass. What I've saved for my greed, what I've lost because of stupidity. I've destroyed stars that supported solar systems just to talk to people…" he rubbed his hands over his face and pushed one in his hair, thinking.

"If whatever's in that box is worse than me, I don't know what I can do to save anybody once it gets out." He looked at them.

"What do you mean, once it gets out?" Rory's eyes widened slightly. "You said…that thing, the box thingame…you said it was sealed, didn't you?"

"Whatever's sealed in there is getting out." He looked around the room for something, anything that could help. "We have two options. Try and stop it, possibly risk our lives in the process…actually fatalities are likely." He looked at Jack pointedly who frowned back.

"Or…we could just, let it go. It might destroy the universe, it might be friendly and put in there by a mistake. Who knows?" his mood had lightened slightly but it did nothing for the electrically tense atmosphere. The awkward silences almost hurt.

"…I think we should stay until it opens." Amy looked at the box. Something about it felt strangely familiar. "It reminds me of something I used to see in my dreams."

The Doctor looked at her. "You're just a barrel of coincidences, aren't you, Amy Pond? Either that, or…" he trailed off.

"Or what?" she asked, slightly more savage than she'd intended.

"Or somebody's been meddling with your childhood…or your memories." He shrugged, casual as could be.

"Somebody's been messing with my head?" Amy sounded appalled at this idea and Jack had to suppress a smirk at the tone of her voice.

The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, looking over at her. "Amy, I don't know, okay? Just…let me figure this one out." He stood next to the Pandorica, his ear pressed against the side as he traced the delicate outline of the cogs with his fingers. "What are you? Who are you?" he whispered, closing his eyes. He could sense whatever was in there, and it certainly wasn't malice.

"Something's wrong." He stood up, staring at the box. If he knew one thing, the Doctor knew what anger and malice felt like. Whatever was in there was scared, confused and desperate for some understanding.

"It's not like…somebody vicious, somebody that wants to destroy everything." He leaned back on his heels, thinking of words to describe it. "It's more like a child, say, a puppy. It bites on instinct, to feel and protect itself. It doesn't bite initially because it wants to hurt. Whatever's in there has no clue why it's being punished, to my knowledge." He looked stricken at this and Jack suddenly put his hand to his ear.

"Tosh just got back to me. Whatever's in there is humanoid, she can't get readings on anything except the mass and shapes, but it's humanoid. If we're going by human terms, it's more likely to be a female judging by the weight but it could be a weedy guy." Jack relayed Tosh's words back to the lot of them.

**AN: Yes, Tosh is alive. I forgot to say. I'm not a fan of shoving OCs in where they aren't welcome so Ianto is the only one who's died, we still have the usual torchwood team otherwise c: I can't think of anybody who could replace Toshiko and Owen.**

Back to business:

"You poor, poor thing…." The Doctor touched the Pandorica again before he was alerted to a loud, buzzing noise, like a swarm of hornets descending upon them. Frowning, he jogged up to the surface, only to be greeted by a plethora of flashing lights, loud noises and whole battle fleets of ships, each one with a light trained on the Doctor.

* * *

Rose lifted her head up, finally aware of her surroundings and in control of her body. She coughed violently, lifting a hand up to her mouth to cover it. Wait, she could move her arms? What happened to the restraints? She frowned and stood up abruptly, feeling around for her gun. Nothing. She wasn't naked, far from it, but she had no weapons, no form of self defence.

"Except your mind." A soft male voice reached her ears and she spun wildly again, confused.

"Sorry for the shock, Rose-"

"How do you know my name?" she asked the mystery voice.

"Geez, give me a chance…" the figure of a well-cut young man stepped out in front of her, appearing from the vast nothingness out of nowhere. "Again, I'm sorry for sneaking up on you like this, attacking your subconscious…I need a favour from you, Rose. It's a lot to ask, especially with what you've been through…and what you're about to go through."

"I'm sorry, mate, but what the hell are you on about? And…who are you?" she stared at the man with a cold glare, her eyes rock hard.

"Oh! I didn't introduce myself. My name's Ianto Jones." He smiled and held his hand out. She shook it hesitantly and let her hand flop uselessly by her side again. The name seemed strangely familiar, a sense of déjà vu washing over her as she looked over the young man. "…Do I know you?" she shook her head and he chuckled slightly, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, yeah. Sort of. A bit. Jack used to go on about you quite a lot. He loves you in some shape or form, which is…a lot for Jack Harkness." He saw her reaction to his name and his smile widened. "So, I've got the right Rose then. Not that I ever doubted you. This favour is about him, Rose. I know you love him as much as he loves you…and so do I. He's probably panicking right now, blaming himself for my death-" she opened her mouth to cut him off but he held a hand up. "It's a lot to ask of you, but I know how to get out of the Pandorica. I'll get you out if you let me do this."

"Prove to me you know Jack, first. How much has he told you?" Rose asked suspiciously.

Ianto was clearly pleased with her answer. "He told me a lot about the last day with you. One bit that stood out to him most was his death. He said he saw you, he heard singing and you kissed him, breathing life into him…that's how he described it."

"The singing…" Rose whispered, looking down at her hands. "…What do I have to do, then?" she moved closer to Ianto, her body language more trusting now. Ianto put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen carefully, it's complicated."


	7. Blue Eyes, Blonde Hair

**AN: Hm, not so sure about this one, thinking of rewriting it. Incredibly sorry for the major wait, there, things have been awfully busy. I hope I did the thing I did (you'll see xD) well enough for it to pass as realistic o_o;  
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**Thank you kindly for all of the reviews, I would reply to you all if I had the time!**

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It was the oddest thing Rose had ever experienced. Her body was definitely there, she could feel the ache from sitting in that box for a year now, but it seemed much less…yet she couldn't move anything. Her limbs weren't obeying her commands, they were obeying somebody else.

She could hear Ianto's skilled mind working his way through the puzzles, mathematical and logical…nothing she could make any sense out of, either way. Her body suddenly jerked up into a robotic sitting position as the door slowly started to crack open, the first fresh air hitting her face after a long time. She felt control return to her limbs and she slumped over in the seat, pulling her head up. The light was incredibly bright, despite the musty air indicating that they were in some sort of cave.

"It's opening!" Amy shouted, running to grab the Doctor and shove him towards the box. They'd been on box watching duty for hours now; she'd stopped counting after the first two. Maybe the Doctor found this huge box interesting but Amy Pond certainly didn't, it was just…a box. Sitting there. It did nothing until the fourth hour in, when it suddenly started to crack open, slowly and steadily, as if to make a grand entrance.

The whole group instantly gathered around the box after Amy's shout and they all just…stopped and stared, mesmerised by the bright light it emitted as the doors slid to a halt and the light finally dimmed, revealing the figure inside.

She lifted her head up, twitching in pain as her neck and various other joints cracked. The restraints on her body lifted and she tried to stand up, her legs trembling from the lack of use before she tumbled down. Jack was the one who ran forward to catch her, terrified of holding her too tightly. She was so…breakable, emaciated and so so fragile. She looked nothing like Rose now, just…half dead. His eyes stung and he pulled her up, helping to support her.

She looked at him through piercing blue eyes, a small smile tugging at her lips. Not Rose's smile, but…

"Jack…I don't have long." The welsh lilt in her voice was unmistakeable. "Her body is weak, but…she wanted to help me…I just wanted to see you…"

Jack's face was a mask of shock and he placed his hands either side of Rose's face, staring into Ianto's eyes.

Jack had no clue what to say. He could only stare in shock, his mouth slightly open. Ianto closed the gap between them and kissed him gently on the lips. "I thought you deserved a proper goodbye for once." Rose's body faltered slightly, her legs trembling under the pathetic weight. "Her body can't take much more of anything. She doesn't die, Jack, but she can't take more…pain." He used the man as a support, trying hard to push Rose's emotions aside so he could focus on his own. It wasn't exactly as if he took over bodies daily but Rose was willing to help. In fact, she had suggested the idea as Ianto's original plan was to ask her to deliver a message to him. Jack had told Ianto about Rose before in one of his slightly drunk and very dark moments in which all of Jack's previous hurt, trauma and anger tended to come out in one burst.

"…she doesn't die?" Jack's voice was even thicker as he held Rose's body closer.

"It took a long time for me to find her, this box…whatever it is, it's pretty damn protective of whatever's inside it." He touched Rose's nose, feeling the blood there. "I'll see you again, Jack, promise." He pressed a kiss to his lips again, the odd feeling of familiarity to him yet unfamiliarity to Rose's lips settling in. "I love you."

And Jack still couldn't bring himself to repeat the words back as Rose's eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed in Jack's arms.

The Doctor had been strangely quiet up until now, brooding silently in the background as he watched the painful reunion take place before him. It should have been his reunion with Rose, not Jack's reunion with Ianto. Jack looked over at him pathetically; a signal for him to move forward and he took it, very carefully relieving Jack of Rose's body. He set her gently down on the ground and whipped his jacket off to prop under her head as a pillow while Jack draped his coat over her shaking body as a blanket before he let himself think of the events that had just unfolded.

The Doctor said nothing, he just simply looped an arm loosely around his neck and bumped his nose against Jack's temple in a brotherly, comforting way, letting Jack have a few moments to himself.

"…I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell just happened?" Amy's face said confused all over. She looked at the blonde haired girl on the floor who had a nosebleed and then back up at the Doctor, trying to illustrate her confusion.

"Oh, yeah." The Doctor's voice was uncharacteristically thick and quiet, as if he had no words to say. "This is Rose Tyler. She travelled with me for a long time, two years or so. We…" trailing off, he floundered around his head for words. "Were very close." Finishing lamely, he glanced at Jack who seemed to have got himself together by now. They shared a look and then the Doctor perked up, putting on his usual happy act. "Right, okay." He clapped his hands together and turned on the spot, pointing two fingers at Amy. "We need to sort out this box and figure how on earth Rose got over here. She was..." he gestured with his hands, making a bubble shape. "Trapped in a parallel universe. Very long story, I'd rather not repeat it. Okay, so, she was trapped and I thought she was living a happy life." The act faltered slightly there, showing the pain in his voice. "but clearly not, something's gone wrong here. We should get her back to the TARDIS, she'll heal much faster in the med bay."

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It was like a man waiting for his wife to give birth. Amy watched as the Doctor paced back and forth, back and forth at a steady rate as if he were a pendulum, swinging slowly yet mesmerizingly. She saw the ghost of hope in his eyes every time Rose shifted, made a little whimper or a moan and then for it to falter and him resume his metronome-like pacing once more.

She had tried a few times to get his attention but he'd just waved her off impatiently, watching Rose. She knew the look in his eyes all too well and it made her hurt slightly, the overpowering love. If he ever looked at her like that, she wouldn't have known whether her heart could stand it.

Rory and Jack saw it too. Rory was holding her hand tightly, his own clammy as he took in the situation around them. Familiar yet alien in a blue box bigger on the inside but at the same time he felt home. It was bloody confusing on top of all of the other events and all he could do was cling to Amy, his rock, the red haired girl that he could only ever love in his wildest daydreams yet she was sat here right next to him as if it were second nature to be holding his hand, strangely unfazed by it all.

Everybody seemed to be in love with this Rose girl. Jack was staring at her too with similar expression to the Doctor's, protective and yearning like a man who had just found his long lost sister or his best friend from childhood. The tension in the air crackled and Amy finally broke it for good in a loud voice.

"She'll be alright, Doctor, you know that. If she managed to put up with you for two years then she must be bloody strong." Her smile was small but it was enough to drag one up from the Doctor and a little chuckle from Jack.

As if on cue, Rose's eyes fluttered open and she groaned softly, arching her back against the dull ache in it. The Doctor ran forward and grabbed her hand but she looked up at him, her eyes frightful and confused. "Who are you?" she croaked. Damn, he'd forgot that.

"Rose, it's me, the Doctor. I regenerated."


	8. Dreaming

**AN: This is only a short one but I am still alive! I'm so sorry to my reviewers and if you're still interested in this crap story, I'll carry it on for you! Again, only a short one, it's 4am and it's boxing day now so merry christmas for yesterday and have a good new year!**

The Doctor was sleeping next to Rose's bed. Now, Amy knew this was pretty bad as she'd always assumed the Doctor just never needed sleep. She'd never seen him sleep before ever since they'd been travelling, actually…sure, he'd had his 'alone time' but if she ever needed him for some alien crisis (or the hair dryer not working) he'd be wide awake in his study or in the library, poring over an uninteresting book of some description.

But right now, he was collapsed in a chair with one hand on his stomach and the other resting on Rose's bed next to her hand. The overall reunion hadn't gone too smoothly. He'd had to give her morphine to knock her out because the sudden shock started playing havoc on her heart, which was apparently delicate right now. She smiled sadly at the Doctor and removed the geeky specs he'd been wearing.

As soon as she made contact with his skin, she felt a rush of emotion. Pain, anger, betrayal, sadness…sadness and loneliness, conquering everything else. Her fingertips lingered on his forehead without her realizing and she was sent into a flurry of his dreams and memories, most of them featuring Rose. She saw the world from his point of view, the turning earth under his feet and the complicated calculations constantly going through his mind, always an undertone of him checking the vital signs of whoever was with him.

There was a short memory of her when he'd touched her cheeks once and her temperature at that point registered in his mind, as well as her pulse and her blood pressure…all of this in her head all at once, it was mindboggling.

Then it started.

A scream and a sudden rush of fear from the Doctor's part entered her mind. He ran past a mirror and she saw a flash of a brown suit and spiked brown hair, as well as a much handsomer face than this man here. The next thing she knew it had skipped to Rose, looking much healthier and rosy-cheeked in the image of his dream, attached to some kind of…board by shackles at her wrists and ankles, one supporting her waist. A machine was being pointed at her and she heard the Doctor shout something illegible, an unexplainable feeling coming over her as he looked at Rose, saw the fear in her dark brown eyes.

The memory suddenly morphed and changed and they were hanging from their lives, Rose's hair a mess but a huge grin on her face as Daleks and Cybermen flew past them at an alarming rate, bashing against the walls of the odd white room that reminded her of the old science lab at her school.

A calm and robotic female voice echoed through the room over the screams and shouts of alarmed Daleks. "Offline."

Amy and the Doctor both watched in horror as Rose let go of the safe hold clamp and grabbed the lever, using all of her strength to push it up against the strong wind.

"Rose!" the Doctor shouted, and he stirred in his sleep.

"Don't let go!" Amy shouted in the dream and muttered in real life. Of course, she knew the outcome – she watched in horror as Rose let go and appeared to fly into the void, before some random man caught her and they both vanished. Her heart broke as the Doctor rested his head on the wall and just remained there, alone and so, so sad…

She tried to put a hand on his shoulder but it just went through him. Of course, it was a dream…

She couldn't watch any more. She pulled herself away from the Doctor with a gasp and he opened his eyes.

"I know you saw that…" he muttered, not catching her eyes, instead examining a really interesting spot on the wall.

"…Sorry." Amy muttered and quickly exited the room, the door shutting quietly behind her.


	9. Author's Note

'Ello, welcome to my author's note.

I've recently had a random surge of people subscribing to this story and I'm incredibly, terribly horribly sorry that I haven't been writing it at all and I promise to god I WILL carry this on. I'm not sure when, but expect to wait at least another 5 weeks until the summer holidays start and I can finally do things that I want to without having to worry when assignments are due in and what corrections go where and so on and so forth.

So, yeah. Thank you very much for...well, hopefully continuing to subscribe. My writing style has changed a bit and I have a better idea of where I want this story to go so hopefully I'll be able to write something that makes up for lost time.

- Snuffy


	10. Does it feel like a trial?

**AN: Thank you for the reviews & the subscriptions. This is a sort of short chapter and I'm not too keen on it ;-; I hope you enjoy it anyway!**

The air had been tense between Amy and the Doctor since then. He hadn't scolded her for it but he was unsure, so unsure about ever opening up and actually sharing his feelings with the world for fear of what would happen if he did one day.

He still hadn't left Rose's side and under any other circumstances, he probably would have died of boredom but he couldn't bring himself to tear away from her tired face or her thin limbs. Too thin.

Rory had been an absolute dream, oddly. Since he'd regained his memory of Amy he had been helping the Doctor as much as possible, unable to watch the strong man fall into a pit of heartbroken sorrow over the small human girl who was apparently so significant. He told Rory stories as he worked, absent-minded dreamy words about how they'd saved the world so many times and how amazing Rose was, what she'd done to save the universe that one time with the time vortex and how scared he'd been of losing her, so he sacrificed his life then and there because he l-

And then he stopped. He could never say it. Rory knew what he wanted to say and he knew it because when he described Rose's hair and Rose's eyes, he saw Amy in his words and how much he adored the way her hair would glisten under the sun and the way her eyes would take on that faraway dreamy look when she talked of foreign lands and alien worlds, her beautiful hands dancing in front of her as she tried to explain things she'd never seen before with words that didn't exist. He was in love with Amy and he knew the Doctor loved Rose, he just couldn't say it.

It was a tough couple of days as Rose battled through her medically induced coma, her eyelids occasionally fluttering as her eyes moved and her fingers twitched, each movement watched intently by the Doctor to ensure her safety. He talked to her as she slept, he talked and talked about nothing and everything and each day he seemed to get weaker and more downheartened by the situation and it was something that the trio of Amy, Jack and Rory couldn't stand watching for much longer. This wasn't the Doctor that they knew and it was frightening at how much this was affecting him. He'd lost people before, of course he had, but this was somehow different. He couldn't go through it again, he'd lost loves before and he just couldn't do it.

He never stopped talking, though. He told her everything, everything he knew and he relayed their stories back to her, reminding her of times they'd had and times they'd missed, times they thought they'd lost it all on an impossible planet and the time they lost each other, but now they were found.

It took three weeks, 5 days, 2 hours and 42 minutes for Rose to open her eyes again. Jack had been counting. She sat up slowly after a drink and looked at the Doctor and her friends stood in the room, Jack, Amy and Rory, who now knew as much about her as the Doctor had told them. She had lived a similar life to them and the room was full of people who had loved and lost so this was a happy day, when the Doctor reached out and traced gentle circles on Rose's cheek, the ancient language of his people with a sad grin on his face, tears brimming in his eyes.

Rose looked back up at him with tired eyes and she reached up to touch him too, his cheek, his nose, his not-ginger hair and even his ears, sleepily exploring his new face. She finally brought herself to stare into those old, old eyes and she saw her Doctor again. "Of course it's you." She whispered, gripping his hand. It felt different but familiar. "It's always you, Doctor." She smiled and pulled herself up. The action cost a lot of effort and a slight amount of help from Rory the nurse, who let her have a sip of cool water to help with her dry throat.

"What happened?" she asked him and of course he knew what she was talking about so he told her in gentle words, trying to hide the pain behind the words when he explained everything from when he had to save Donna to when the Master saved his life. She listened intently, hanging on his every word with tears in her eyes at Donna's fate and pain in her heart when she heard his. He carried on and told her about meeting Amy and how she'd waited, how Rory and Amy were due to be Mr and Mrs. Pond (WILLIAMS) and he talked to her in foreign languages to put her to sleep again, gently stroking the dirty locks of hair from her face.

When Rose was strong enough, Amy helped her feel normal again. It was a slightly awkward and embarrassing moment when she had to assist with giving Rose a bath (who really didn't like the idea either, but could hardly move and she didn't particularly want Jack or Rory doing it) and she helped the girl wash her hair, humming absent-mindedly.

"Amy?" Rose asked. The sound of her voice shocked Amy out of the action for a moment before she carried on, careful not to catch the neck-straps of Rose's bikini that she wore for decency as she carried on lathering up her hair.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you." She had a smile on her pale lips and her eyes were starting to regain the look they had before. "You saved him, I know you did. You'll know this by now, but he needs somebody." Amy nodded in agreement, letting Rose continue. "I just…it isn't really my place to say it, but thanks, Amy…and thanks from me only for everything you've done for me. I don't deserve it." She laughed softly, but it was sad.  
Amy frowned slightly, rinsing Rose's hair with a jug of warm water. "Rose, I don't know you, but he does. If you're that important to the Doctor and Jack, you're that important to me as well."


End file.
